It would be better to regulate some type of communication to customers
*before* depeering occurs, much in the same way that the SEC requires
publicly traded companies to communicate certain things a certain times to
its shareholders.

It's an indirect form of market intervention that can be pretty effective,
because sometimes the unwillingness to communicate a bad thing to ones
customers is enough incentive for the parties involved to "figure it out".

I'll make one comment before 'Alex the Hammer' closes this discussion for
straying into politics.

Clearly regulating the incumbents to unbundle local loops has worked very
well in some European countries (France and possibly others). Clearly US
financial deregulation has cost the world dearly.

So regulation is the appropriate response in some cases (I hope that is
clear given the world financial system almost went under a few weeks ago).

However, it is not clear what a well crafted peering regulation would do
that is different than what the market has achieved already.

Sensible and hence pragmatic government mandated peering would require
companies having equal bilateral traffic flows to peer or buy transit from
each other. That would not necessarily preclude the current peering dispute.

Forcing companies to peer when it is not in their interest is unlikely to be
supported by the courts in any country, even the French and German courts.

Sooner or later these two companies in conflict will either return to
peering or one of them will buy transit to reach the other.

It is a short term issue that probably doesn't merit government intervention